Dumb Design in Household Electronics

In My Humble Opinion
81

[QUOTE=Sunspace]
The eject button on the keyboard is soft (mediated by the OS), so that’s not a surprise. I just want an emergency hard eject for when it goes wrong.What if you don’t have a mouse? :slight_smile: I have a laptop and a drawing tablet.

I noticed that Apple finally made the trash icon turn into an eject symbol when you drag the icon for a mounted disc to it, so at least that removed one of the most inconsistent tings about the old interface.
[/QUOTE]

I would suspect that depressing the “clicker” would work. As far as “finally” getting around to the eject symbol - that’s been since the dawn of OS X, going on 8 years…

82

My first computer had the reset button right next to the turbo button (remember those?), and it was so sensitive that it would reset if you even just brushed it a little.

83

[QUOTE=beowulff]
the dawn of OS X, going on 8 years…
[/QUOTE]
Try not quite seven for 10.0. But nobody really used it until 10.1 Puma, about 6 six years ago. And Apple didn’t switch to selling new machines with OS-X preinstalled until 10.2 Jaguar, a little more than 5 years ago. Considering Mac has been around for more than 23 years, that’s still reasonably recent. [/nitpick] :slight_smile:

I don’t even want to think about all the machines that still run Windows 98.

84

[QUOTE=Manduck]
My first computer had the reset button right next to the turbo button (remember those?)
[/QUOTE]
Actually, I don’t. I have some vague recollection… what did they do? And why wouldn’t you leave it on all the time (or install half a dozen, for that matter) ?

ETA: Wiki remembers turbo.

85

[QUOTE=beowulff]
I would suspect that depressing the “clicker” would work. As far as “finally” getting around to the eject symbol - that’s been since the dawn of OS X, going on 8 years…
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but I’ve only had my Mac for six months. :slight_smile:

86

[QUOTE=squeegee]
Actually, I don’t. I have some vague recollection… what did they do? And why wouldn’t you leave it on all the time (or install half a dozen, for that matter) ?
[/QUOTE]

The purpose of the reset button was to reboot the computer without actually turning the power off. You really didn’t want to press it by accident. The purpose of the turbo button was to either speed up or slow down the computer, depending on how you look at it. Some programs wouldn’t work properly at the faster speed; otherwise you would keep turbo on (or is that off?) at all times.

87

[QUOTE=Trunk]
I’m amazed at companies who distribute remote controls with the numbers painted on the buttons themselves, instead of on the remote istelf beneath the buttons.

Or, at least amazed at how not indelible (is delible a word?) the paint is.

Or, they could form the button in the shape of the number, or something. It’s bad bad design, and should have been worked out of the system by now.
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I’m not about to read through all the other posts in here, but when I worked for a certain telephone company the keypad numbers were made with two-coloured plastic injection. There was no painting. The number was injected into the mold with a different colour. How much more expensive this would be versus the life of the product I don’t know. But the damned thing would never wear out.

88

[QUOTE=Leaffan]
I’m not about to read through all the other posts in here, but when I worked for a certain telephone company the keypad numbers were made with two-coloured plastic injection. There was no painting. The number was injected into the mold with a different colour. How much more expensive this would be versus the life of the product I don’t know. But the damned thing would never wear out.
[/QUOTE]

Ma Bell sure knew how to build things! Their concern wasn’t cost per item to build, but they were madly obsessed with cost per item to maintain in perpetuity when they were The One And Only Phone Company, and they were responsible for keeping every phone in the country working right.

By “overbuilding” the phones, they could be reasonably assured that they’d never need to look at a phone ever again once it had been installed in your home, freeing them to take care of everything else. The outside wires, in particular, take a pounding from weather and constantly need attention.

89

[QUOTE=Manduck]
The purpose of the reset button was to reboot the computer without actually turning the power off. You really didn’t want to press it by accident. The purpose of the turbo button was to either speed up or slow down the computer, depending on how you look at it. Some programs wouldn’t work properly at the faster speed; otherwise you would keep turbo on (or is that off?) at all times.
[/QUOTE]

My last computer case had a tiny recessed button for reset, so you wouldn’t press it accidentally. But when you’re having frequent computer lock-ups, it’s a PITA to have to keep finding a pen or pencil to press then tiny button.

IIRC the “turbo” button was to slow down the computer for the benefit of older software that didn’t work properly at blazing 12Mhz speeds. The turbo speed was really the normal speed of the computer. Turning off turbo would take you down to 8mhz (the original IBM PC/AT speed) on a 12mhz computer.

90

[QUOTE=control-z]
Turning off turbo would take you down to 8mhz (the original IBM PC/AT speed) on a 12mhz computer.
[/QUOTE]

It was mainly so games didn’t run unplayably fast. Since all ATs were the same speed when they came out, it was common to control timing via software spin loops and such rather than real time interupts. Once speeds started increasing 25% every 6 months, programmers started writing software that wasn’t so dependant on processor speed.

91

I have a feeling this was done on purpose, but I hate it when a DVD is playing its long intro and the [menu] or [top menu] button do nothing. Even worse is when [top menu] restarts the whole process.

Since it can take so long to get to the main menu of some discs, I’ll put in the DVD and go in another room to do something, only to discover that it has auto-started the movie!

Inconsistency. We have a remote for our DVR and a remote for our DVD player. On one of them, you restart a paused movie by pressing “pause” again (pressing “play” won’t work). On the other, you have to press “play” (pressing “pause” again won’t work). Argh!

Another huge one: we bought a wide-screen TV. Since there are often extraneous sounds and distractions around the house (and my hearing isn’t what it once was), we turn on subtitles for our DVDs. First DVD we played (and the majority of DVDs since), we popped in the disc, got to the start of the movie, zoomed the image so that it neatly fitted our TV screen, and started watching. No subtitles. After much monkeying around, we discovered that they were positioned in the black space under the picture. Spiffy. We bought a wide-screen TV, but we have to shrink the picture to read the freaking subtitles.

This isn’t exactly consumer electronics, but I hate when ATMs allow withdrawals in $20 increments, but you have to enter the amount you want to the penny. Yep. To get the minimum amount, you enter [2][0][0][0]. Brain dead design.

And our new microwave oven. When you press a number on the keypad, it starts cooking for that many minutes. Press [3], it cooks for 3 minutes. What if you want 2:30? Either watch the timer and stop it 30 seconds before it’s done, or press [Power Level] before entering the time you want. Obvious, eh?

And our oven timer. You enter the time you want, but it doesn’t counting until you press the start button. We burned a few things when we first moved in because of it. The stupid thing should start timing if you haven’t touched a button in a few seconds, just like every other digital oven timer I’ve ever seen.

92

I really like the way our new microwave works. Push “Add minute” and it starts right away. Push it again to add another minute. Don’t want round number of minutes? It has a “more time” and a “less time” button, which add or subtract ten seconds. So I can get my food going, then figure out exactly how much time I want. :cool:

Ooh, that’s off topic, isn’t it? Ummm, if you paused it, you can’t add time until it’s running again. :wink:

93

[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]
I have a feeling this was done on purpose, but I hate it when a DVD is playing its long intro and the [menu] or [top menu] button do nothing. Even worse is when [top menu] restarts the whole process.
[/QUOTE]
As an experiment, try pressing “stop” and then hitting the “top menu” button. It may, or may not, work for you.

94

[QUOTE=gotpasswords]
Ma Bell sure knew how to build things! Their concern wasn’t cost per item to build, but they were madly obsessed with cost per item to maintain in perpetuity when they were The One And Only Phone Company, and they were responsible for keeping every phone in the country working right.

By “overbuilding” the phones, they could be reasonably assured that they’d never need to look at a phone ever again once it had been installed in your home, freeing them to take care of everything else. The outside wires, in particular, take a pounding from weather and constantly need attention.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, and now, instead of having one monopolist phone company, we just have to worry about them handing over our personal information to the government (or anyone else who asks for it) just for shits and giggles. Perhaps we weren’t so smart in breaking up the phone company after all.

95

[QUOTE=Askance]
Every fan (desk or standard) I’ve ever bought has a slowest speed that is too fast, blows a gale and is very noisy. Who ever uses the fastest speeds?
[/QUOTE]

Every person who lives in the South during the height of summer.

96

[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
As an experiment, try pressing “stop” and then hitting the “top menu” button. It may, or may not, work for you.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, that’s what I do with mine. Then I don’t have to even see the main menu stuff, just play the movie baby!

NB

97

[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
As an experiment, try pressing “stop” and then hitting the “top menu” button. It may, or may not, work for you.
[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately, the “stop” button on my DVD player takes you all the way back to the loading screen displayed by the player–as if you’d just loaded a fresh DVD. Then you have to go through the whole DVD startup process all over again. I discovered this when I accidentally pressed “stop” instead of “pause” while playing a movie. sigh

98

I saw the potential for DVD user-interface evil when I learned that DVD designers could arbitrarily lock out “user operations”, such as pressing the fast-forward button, on any segment of video.

Speaking of software, why is it that every time I start a Microsoft app, it gives me a new blank file? 99% of the time here at work, I’m opening something I already have. How do I turn this off, and have the programe just start empty?

99

[QUOTE=Sunspace]

Speaking of software, why is it that every time I start a Microsoft app, it gives me a new blank file? 99% of the time here at work, I’m opening something I already have. How do I turn this off, and have the programe just start empty?
[/QUOTE]

I think Windows wants you to click on your document rather than the application. In other words, if you want to work on “My secret plan for World Domination.doc”, then go to My Documents and double-click that file, rather than opening Word and then opening “My secret plan for World Domination.doc”

100

I discovered yesterday that my Blackberry 7100 has what is probably the most arcane and ridiculous method for mute EVER.

  1. Initiate call
  2. Remove phone from ear so you can see the screen
  3. Click scroll wheel to display menu
  4. Scroll to Mute and select
  5. Put phone back to ear so you can now listen to your call

There should be a rule that mute must always be a BUTTON. Not a menu command.